Ye and French Montana face a new copyright infringement lawsuit centred on audio from a confrontational 2013 encounter between the rapper and paparazzi. The celebrity news agency Bauer-Griffin alleges that the duo, along with several producers and the label that released the track, incorporated sound from a widely publicised video into 'Where They At,' a song from French Montana's Mac & Cheese 5 album released in 2024. The disputed footage, captured outside a Beverly Hills restaurant and showing Ye confronting a photographer whilst shouting expletives, was allegedly incorporated into the song's intro without proper licensing, despite being recognisable to listeners and subject to existing copyright protections.

This represents another chapter in Ye's contentious history with unlicensed sampling claims. The artist has faced over a dozen similar lawsuits throughout his career, most recently losing a jury trial in May concerning an uncleared sample used in an early version of 'Hurricane.' The lawsuit underscores a recurring tension in hip-hop production, where sampling popular cultural moments has become common practice but remains legally fraught when proper rights are not secured. Bauer-Griffin asserts that industry standards regarding sound recording copyrights are well-established and widely known, making the alleged infringement a deliberate violation rather than an oversight.